Google talks with EU privacy watchdogs on right to be forgotten

An EU ruling gives European residents a "right to be forgotten" online. Google says it may take several weeks to determine how the process will work.

Photo: PHILIPPE HUGUEN, Staff

Google has been in touch with data-protection regulators about a European Union court ruling this month that may require it to remove personal information from search results.

Regulators in Germany and Ireland said they had spoken with Google about the verdict, which gave European residents a "right to be forgotten" online. Google said the company would release an online tool to remove personal information, said Arne Gerhard, a spokesman for privacy officials in Hamburg.

The ruling by the EU Court of Justice opens the way for European users to flood Internet companies with take-down requests, adding costs and time to what they already do in content removal. Google, and other search engines, will have to make the first decision about whether to remove links that may infringe privacy rights before regulators or courts intervene.

Al Verney, a spokesman for Google in Brussels, declined to comment. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has said that takedown requests are complicated and it might take several weeks to determine how the process will work.

The EU "court didn't provide much guidance" on how Google should apply its ruling, said Orla Lynskey, a law lecturer at the London School of Economics. "Google needs to ascertain whether the indexing of an individual's personal data is incompatible with the EU data protection rules" and must "determine whether particular personal information is in the public interest."